The present invention relates to a new flexible pipe structure lighter in weight than prior art pipes while maintaining correct performances, particularly mechanical performances.
The invention applies in particular to the construction of flexible pipes for transporting pressurized fluids, such as water or hydrocarbons.
For numerous applications of such pipes, it is often desirable and sometimes necessary to have light weight flexible pipes, and flexible pipes having also a very good resistance to frictional wear, particularly for deep sea applications.
The flexible pipes in some variants of construction of the invention may in particular be laid at sea at greater water depths.
In fact, one of the problems met with during the laying of such flexible pipes in very deep water, results from the weight of the suspended flexible pipe.
The stress in the flexible pipe resulting from the weight increases the closer to the surface of the water starting from the bottom.
Thus, it is at the level of the means for holding the flexible pipe at the surface that the greatest stresses in the flexible pipe occur.
One means for reducing such stress, is to reduce the weight of the flexible pipe while substantially maintaining its mechanical performances, which is what the present invention proposes.